Sunday, August 27, 2017

Joan joined Bob Hope & Bing Crosby for this 1962 comedy, 'The Road To Hong Kong' the last of the classic series of Road movies.. Among the many guest stars were Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin..Read more about this MGM release her in my film archive!60'S FOCUS :: THE ROAD TO HONG KONG ..

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Don't forget Channel 4 tonight, Tuesday 29th at 10:20pm to catch Joan & Percy talk about what they find annoying in their relationship! The programme will be repeated on Friday September 1st at 11:05pm..

Monday, August 14, 2017

... ”AH, yes, the sterling Krystle!” In almost every episode of TV’s epic eye-shadow and shoulder-pad saga, “Dynasty,” Joan Collins, as Alexis Carrington Colby, etc, would make some sort of wisecrack, playing on the name of her nemesis, Linda Evans (aka Krystle Jennings Carrington).

"OH, here, Blake, let me give you a hand with that. We can bury her near lily pond."

Those were the good old days when “Dynasty” ruled on Wednesday nights and much of America — and the world — would come to halt for “dinner and Dynasty.” (This sounded even better in Britain, where it was pronounced “dinner and Dinasty.”)

Well, if you’ve a hankering for the over-stuffed 1980’s exemplified in “Dynasty,” be aware that CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Video are releasing “Dynasty: The Complete Series” on October 10th. All nine seasons, 57 discs, 220 episodes.

Sure, the final three or four seasons lost steam — thanks in part to ABC launching the almost-equally-delicious (if unsuccessful) “The Colbys” off of “Dynasty’s”Nolan Miller-clad back. Still, there was always fun to be had.Joan Collins, in particular, managed to the end to make her mantra to John Forsythe — “I hate you Blake, and I’ll make you suffer no matter what!” — sound like she meant it.

The first four seasons, in particular, are high art in high camp with everybody either over or under acting hilariously.

Remember the eternally sullen Pamela Sue Martin as Fallon? Or the relentlessly slutty Sammy Jo, played with snarly abandon by Heather Locklear?

Pamela Sue Martin as Fallon.

Heather Locklear as Sammy Jo.

And of course, Diahann Carroll as Dominique Deveraux, “the first black bitch on television!” as Miss Carroll herself joyfully proclaimed. (In the first scene between Dominque and Alexis, Miss Deveraux shudders at Alexis’ offered goodies — the champagne “is burned ... obviously frozen in the bottle at some point.” And the caviar? “This is Ossetra, and I prefer Petrossian Beluga.” No surprise that a few more episodes in they’d be slapping each other around.)

Diahann Carroll as Dominique Deveraux.

Sure there were men — Forsythe, John James, Al Corley and Jack Coleman as the often-gay-but-sometimes-not Steven Carrington. (Corley left after the first season, so the producers put the character in a fiery oil rig accident that returned him home, still very handsome and blonde, but looking entirely different in the person of Mr. Coleman. Back in those days, accidents didn’t disfigure, one just came back in an altered state of attractiveness.) And of course, there were all of Alexis’s lovers and husbands.

Jack Coleman as Steven Carrington.

But the guys were just around as occasional eye candy and a respite from the phantasmagorical collection of silks, satins, beading and dead animals that were thrown at the ladies. (Especially Joan Collins, who bloomed under the excess — Collins never met a giant lynx collar, a turban, a Medusa-like wiggy wig or a carton of double-thick false eyelashes she could not wrestle to the floor and dominate, through sheer force of personality.)

I’m putting my order in now. I couldn’t possibly wait until October!

They say April is the cruelest month. Perhaps. But August is turning into the scariest. I need distraction.

“Then I saw this young girl and I thought, ‘Who’s that? She looks familiar ...’ Then I realised it was it was me, aged 18, in this movie called,” she gives an ironic little chuckle, “The Good Die Young.”

Joan with Richard Basehart in 'The Good Die Young'

While her nine years of shoulder pads and stinging quips on Dynasty in the 1980s remain the most infamous of her career, she had already made 50 films prior and has made dozens since. (Not to mention her countless TV guest roles, cameos and regular returns to her first love, the stage.)

And although actors might be expected to slow down in their 80s, Collins appears to be picking up speed: along with recurring roles in UK comedy series Benidorm and E! drama The Royals (alongside Elizabeth Hurley), she popped up in last year’s Absolutely Fabulous movie and spent several years working with her husband Percy Gibson to find funding for her new headline movie outing, The Time of Their Lives.

Joan as The Grand Duchess in 'The Royal's'

(She’s also, she tells Hit, “in the middle of starting a movie that’s top secret at the moment ... It’s along the lines of La La Land and that’s all I can say”.)

Brought to her by writer-director Roger Goldby, The Time of Their Lives teams Dame Joan with Pauline Collins (no relation) in an unexpected later-in-life adventure, a la Ladies in Lavender or Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

They play two very different women who strike up an unlikely and eventful friendship.

“Helen is a washed-up actress and Priscilla is a washed-up housewife with no future,” Collins explains.

“It has everything — it has pathos, it has comedy, it has a lot of fun, a lot of sadness. It’s a feel-good movie and I think people can identify with one or other of the women.”

Joan with Pauline Collins in 'The Time of Their Lives'

With Priscilla caught up along in the scheming Helen’s wake, the pair cross the water to France where Helen is intent on making it to a funeral — not to pay her respects but to lobby the bigwigs in attendance for a shot at a movie comeback.

“Hollywood is littered with Helens,” says Collins. “She had it all and she threw it away because of her dissolute lifestyle. You have to understand that for every actor who becomes successful, for every Eddie Redmayne or Helen Mirren, there are 10,000 people who fall by the wayside. Stardom doesn’t last very long.”

Along the road, Priscilla rediscovers her worth and Helen finally confronts the fallout of that dissolute lifestyle and faces a future without stardom — symbolised by a scene where she wipes off her make-up and throws her wig into the ocean.

Joan as Helen Shelley

“First of all, it was a hideous, hideous wig,” Collins says. “It was supposed to be hideous! I used to tell my hair stylist, ‘It doesn’t look hideous enough — make it look worse!’

“So yes, Helen was very happy to (throw it away). And it was so funny because after about the third or fourth take, the waves brought the wig back to the shore. We thought: not even the sea wants this horrible old thing!”

To Collins’ mind, The Time of Their Lives carries the message that it’s never too late for second chances, to do right by yourself and others, or to find your purpose in life.

While Collins has known her purpose in life since childhood, she has also long known this career would come with its peaks and troughs.

Her father Joseph, a theatrical agent, drummed into her as a child the pitfalls and discipline required of being an actor. And a more mystical adviser drove the point home.

“Oh, I have nine lives,” Collins says, matter-of-factly. “I was told that once by an astrologist, when I was in my 20s. ‘You will always land on your feet; everything will be difficult to attain but you will always be successful.’”